We have now come to the Church in Thyatira. The Lord praised the church for a few things. “Your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.” (Rev 2:19) As a pastor this is encouraging to me. The fact that this church is doing more than they did before shows me that they are growing. This is what we are supposed to be doing in this Christian life…growing, changing, becoming a force in the Kingdom of the Lord. Sadly there are too many people in churches that are satisfied where they are in their walk and don’t care if they are growing. There are too many retired people who feel the have retired from their work for the Lord as well. Then waste the rest of their lives. This is a great challenge to evaluate your life: Am I growing? What am I doing to serve the church and to advance the kingdom?
There is another word in this passage that sticks out to me: Tolerate. This is a popular word in our culture today. However, there are many different nuances of the word. Some say that we should be tolerant of all that everyone else does while others say they are tolerant of all except those who are intolerant (however you justify that), and the list goes on and on. This word is interesting when you think about it. What they are really saying is that you cannot have any strong convictions about anything. If you do, that means you are intolerant. Really it is just a different way expressing the popular cultural view of relativism. That is a topic for another post. I want to focus on the fact that the church tolerated a false prophetess, tolerated sin. They did agree with it, but they didn’t take a stance against it either. They were passive and just said, “as long as I don’t follow it”. As I look at the church today, I feel this is an all too common practice of today’s church members. They see sin in the lives of other or see a false teaching in their church, and just turn a blind eye and worry about themselves. Think of how the church would be radically transformed if we would do the true loving thing and confronted the sin in others. In a recent article I read it listed 14 attributes of a healthy church (notice it didn’t say a large church), one of the attributes it listed was the practice of church discipline. In most churches this is a practice that has been lost. Let’s take a few minutes and think about the message that sends. If you see sin in the lives of your fellow church family members and do nothing. What we are really saying is, “I see your sin, but I don’t love you enough to confront you about that sin, and/or I really don’t take what the Bible says serious enough to act on it.” Then you (or others watching) start thinking, “If they do not take part of the Bible seriously then why take other parts of the Bible seriously. Why should I take any of the Bible seriously.” Wow! In an age where people are asking the question, “Does it work?” No wonder they are looking at the church and then walking away. You can tell that a church is serious about the Holiness and serious about what the Word of God says by the way they tolerate (or don’t tolerate) unrepentant sin! As painful of a process, for all parties involved, church discipline and/or confrontation of sin (following the Matthew 18 process) is essential for a church that is healthy and pleasing to the Lord.
So, how do you use the word “tolerate”? Are you looking at personal preferences and choosing to over look them…as we should? Are you starting to buy into the cultural view of tolerance and give up a lot along the way? Are you tolerating sin in your own life?
Pastor Matt
